Southern California Edison : Responds to Wildfires in Service Territory

12/05/2017 | 10:05 pm

A number of wildfires are currently affecting customers and electric
service in Southern California Edison’s (SCE) service territory. SCE
crews and field personnel are attempting to make damage assessments, but
are being hampered by fire conditions in certain areas.

“Our priority is to ensure the safety of our employees and customers,”
said Kevin Payne, chief executive officer of SCE. “We have mobilized
additional resources to the impacted areas and we are working to restore
electric service to our customers as quickly and safely as possible. Our
thoughts and concerns are with everyone affected by these wildfires.”

SCE initiated proactive measures over the weekend as weather forecasts
indicated elevated fire risks. This included the mobilization of a full
Incident Management Team, the pre-staging of critical field personnel
and the implementation of measures to mitigate impacts of high
winds. SCE continues to actively manage the impact of the fires to its
electric systems as well as to its customers. The company remains in
close coordination with fire agencies and other first responders to
ensure employee and public safety.

Transmission lines will continue to be threatened as the fires continue
to burn along transmission paths, possibly causing additional power
interruptions. A local transmission emergency was declared by the
California Independent System Operator (CAISO) due to the loss of
critical transmission lines serving the Ventura and Santa Barbara area.

SCE’s priority is to restore the transmission system or reroute power
from unaffected areas to impacted customers. Some customers in
fire-affected areas should be prepared to be without power for days or
experience intermittent outages for the next few days because of damage
caused by the fire. SCE appreciates its customers’ patience as the
company works safely to restore power to affected areas. During this
period, we ask customers in and around the affected areas to conserve
electricity whenever possible. For safety’s sake, always consider downed
power lines as live or energized, never touch or approach a downed power
line, and call 911.

Based on the apparent location of the origin of both the Thomas fire in
the Ventura and Santa Barbara area and the Creek Fire in Sylmar, and the
performance of SCE’s system, SCE has no indication that the company’s
facilities were a source of these fires. There continues to be a
persistent threat of additional fires due to this severe weather event
including the emergent Rye fire in the Santa Clarita area; and the
company is unaware of the source of ignition of this new fire at this
early stage. CAL FIRE will be conducting a thorough investigation.

About Southern California Edison

An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California Edison
is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving a population
of approximately 15 million via 5 million customer accounts in a
50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern
California.